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News and Highlights
Thursday, December 2

• Poster Awards
• Symposium X - Frontiers of Materials Research
• National Institutes of Health Funding Seminar
• Department of Homeland Security Funding Seminar
• Department of Energy Funding Seminar

	2004 MRS Meeting Chairs (left to right): Shefford Baker (Cornell Univ.), Julia Hsu (Sandia National Labs), Richard Vaia (Air Force Research Lab) and Beth Stadler (Univ of Minnesota)

SYMPOSIUM X - FRONTIERS OF MATERIALS RESEARCH—INNOVATIONS TO IMPACT

Symposium X concluded with two excellent talks at noon. The first was given by Prof. Richard E. Smalley (Rice Univ.), 1996 Chemistry Nobel Laureate, on Nanotechnology for Energy Prosperity. Smalley started by saying that since President George W. Bush has won a second term as President of the United States, he has a real opportunity to make a difference. In particular, Smalley said that there are four major issues from his viewpoint that the President should address. The first is to inspire the next generation of American scientists and engineers since so few Americans are pursuing scientific and engineering careers. He pointed out that the number of Asian PhDs are increasing at a significant rate. Non-U.S. students who study in the U.S. are increasingly either going back or not even coming to the U.S. for their graduate work, while the number of U.S. citizens receiving PhDs is steady or even declining. Second, Smalley said that there is a global energy crisis that needs to be addressed. Third, global warming is a problem and there is significant scientific evidence for it. It needs to be addressed. Fourth, Smalley laid out humanity's top 10 problems for the next 50 years but said that the overriding one is energy. We need abundant low-cost clean energy which by itself will take care of the other 9 problems such as water, food, poverty and population.

Smalley then described possible ways in which the energy problem can be solved. Oil was the basis of energy prosperity for the world in the 20th century. Sometime soon, however, worldwide oil production will level out and then start to decline. Energy prosperity for primary energy generation in the 21st century is likely to be an array of many technologies such as clean coal, natural gas, nuclear, solar, wind, biomass. Smalley then proposed a world energy scheme, the distributed store-gen grid, to supply the 30-60 terawatts of energy that will be required in 2050. This involves transporting terawatts of power over continental distances by high voltage transmission lines, and local storage of this electrical energy in "uninterruptible power supplies" in every house, business, and vehicle. He concluded by saying that obviously, he believes nanotechnology innovations and associated materials advances will play a crucial role in developing this electrical grid of the future.

"Our Energy Challenge" Windows Media Video (100k) (Columbia University).

The second symposium X talk was given by Malcolm R. O'Neill (Lockheed Martin Corp.) on Opportunities for Nano-materials in Defense and Homeland Security. O'Neill gave an introduction to Lockheed Martin saying that it is the largest employer of scientists and engineers in America. The science of nanomaterials is of great interest to the defense and homeland security areas. The following materials needs are crucial for aerospace systems: lighter weight and stronger materials, smaller components, advanced material functionalities, composites, and materials/structures to enable "single stage to orbit" flights. For all these needs, nano is becoming a definitive technology. He then described various aerospace system needs including multifunctional structures, photonics and sensors, energetics, and modeling and other tools. He gave various examples of the types of work that is of interest for aerospace needs with the disctinction that these go well beyond laboratory research and involved product development, including the nanotubes-enabled low cost autonomous attack system (LOCAAS) extended wing design, which extends while in flight.

POSTER AWARDS

B9.5
Spectroscopic ellipsometry study of CdSe and CdTe nanoparticles embedded in SiO2 films Padullaparthi Babu Dayal^1,2, Mehta Bodh Raj^1,2 and P D Paulson^2,1; ¹Physics, IIT Delhi, New Delhi, Delhi, India; ²Institute of Energy Conversion, University of Delaware, Newark, Delaware.

E11.10
Crystallinity and Polarity of III-V Nitride Semiconductors Grown on ZnO. Takeshi Ohgaki¹, Naoki Ohashi¹, Shigeaki Sugimura^3,1, Isao Sakaguchi¹, Katsumi Maeda³, Mitsuru Sato^3,2 and Hajime Haneda^1,4; ¹National Institute for Materials Science, Tsukuba, Japan; ²NIMSWave Inc., Gunma, Japan; ³Tokyo Denpa Co.Ltd., Tokyo, Japan; ⁴Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan.

H11.13
Magnetic and Structural Characterization of Magneto-electric Epitaxial Oxide Multilayers. Rajesh Vilas Chopdekar^1,2 and Yuri Suzuki²; ¹School of Applied Physics, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York; ²Department of Materials Science and Engineering, UC Berkeley, Berkeley, California.

U11.1
Deformability of Thin Metal Films on Polymer Substrates. Teng Li¹, Zhenyu Huang¹, Zhigang Suo¹, Stephanie P. Lacour² and Sigurd Wagner²; ¹Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts; ²Department of Electrical Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey.

TECHNICAL PRESENTATIONS - A SAMPLING

Symposium U
The assembly of quantum dots such as CdSe colloidal nanoparticles over large areas is a significant challenge. Delivering the first talk of the morning in Symposium U, Shengguo Jia from Columbia University described the use of electrophoretic deposition to obtain smooth films of CdSe nanoparticles over large areas. Films thicker than 800 nm however, start to show cracks which arise from the release of strain due to the loss of residual solvent from the electrophoretically deposited films. Channel cracks as well as ‘telephone cord’ structures arise in thick films. Uniformity and chemical stability are key requirements for most applications of these nanoparticle films. Jia described the use of cross-linkers such as 1,8-octanediamine to link the nanocrystal cores, leading to films with greater robustness.

Symposium CC
In symposium CC, N. Tabiryan described the observation of a nonlinear optical "Black Hole" in dye-doped liquid crystals. His research group accidentally encountered an extremely strong novel process of nonlinear absorption in liquid crystal (LC) materials doped by a dye at saturating level of concentration. This results in the disappearance of the laser beam with power as high as 20 mW or more in the material with no visible output. This was observed for a He-Ne laser beam (l = 633 nm) focused on 30 mm-thick planarly oriented nematic LC (NLC) 5CB containing up to 2 wt.% of the dye 1,8-dihydroxy,4,5-diamino,2,7-diisopentyl-anthraquinone. The effect can be observed also for a green laser beam (l = 532 nm) in the same material. This "black hole" effect takes place for radiation of sufficiently high power at certain positions of the cell, symmetrically arranged with respect to the focus of a lens (20 mm focal length). Choosing special dyes and solutions may reduce the operation power level and increase the initial transmission state of these material systems making them promising for a variety of applications.

Symposium GG
In an invited talk in Symposium GG, Tom Krupenkin from Bell Labs outlined recent research on developing dynamically tunable nanostructured surfaces, informally known as ‘nanograss’. The ability to switch local contact angles at liquid-solid interfaces without changing the materials would enable the controllable transport and interaction between a liquid droplet and a solid surface. The use of silicon-based nanoposts with a thin layer of dielectric silicon oxide, coated with a fluoropolymer, leads to the formation of a superhydrophobic surface, where liquid droplets form a ‘rolling ball’. Using principles of electrowetting, Krupenkin and his coworkers apply a voltage to these nanoposts which changes the local contact angle and leads to the droplet penetrating to the solid surface through the ‘nanograss’ to form a ‘sticky droplet’. Thus through application of a voltage between the surface and the droplet, the surface can be transformed from a superhydrophobic to hydrophilic and even to a surface that is completely wetted by the liquid. Potential applications include use in ‘lab on a chip’ technology, reserve nanobatteries, as well as in reducing drag in objects used underwater.

Symposium NN
In an evening session in symposium NN on magnetic materials for space applications, there was a very interesting talk by Karen McNamara on the NASA genesis mission that was launched to collect samples of the solar wind and return them to earth. McNamara is the lead person for the recovery of the Genesis spacecraft. Unfortunately, as is well known, a parachute failed to deploy and the spacecraft crashed to earth on Sep. 8, 2004. Fortunately, most of the scientific canister and the collectors within have been recovered and can still be used for analysis and study. McNamara described the various collectors within the canister. Indeed, the entire spacecraft itself is available for study. There are well over 10,000 individually documented collector pieces. McNamara said that all of these are or will be available to scientists for study. She invited researchers interested to contact NASA. Additional details are available on the NASA Genesis Mission Website. McNamara also said that all the pieces will eventually be fully catalogued in a database which will be made publicly available.

NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH FUNDING SEMINAR

From the National Institutes of Health, Christine Kelley and Elena Kousvelari talked about some materials opportunities. Kelley, director of the Division of Discoery Science & Technology at the NIH Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB) said that her institute houses research on matyerials and has a current budget of $280 million. Their Web site is www.nibib.nih.gov. She cautioned that the doubling of funding for NIH is completed and now the budget is tight and grants are very competitive.

Elena Kousvelari of NIH's National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research announced unique research opportunities in nanotechnology. Nanotechnology will be used for understanding, diagnosing, and treating diseases as well as for detecting disease before health deterioration sets in. The main challenges in this interdisciplinary research is communication among the various players: clinicians, biologists, materials scientists, and engineers. The first two do not know what is technically possible and the latter two do not know what the problems are. While their body of knowledge will be complementary, they also need to be able to understand one another. Kousvelari referred attendees to the Web site of the NIH Bioengineering Consortium for information on grants and programs: www.becon.nih.gov.

DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY FUNDING SEMINAR

Jane A. Alexander, deputy director of the Homeland Security Advanced Research Projects Agency (HSARPA), said that funding from her agency for materials research and development is mission-oriented with the main focus on rapid prototyping and commercial adaptation. If a particular research group can accomplish part of the mission, the group may be matched with another group to do the other part, so it is recommended that researchers contact a program manager to explore their options. The Department of Homeland Security wants detection systems to be low-cost so that they will be implemented. Among the science and security technology sought is new materials for personal protective equipment. Access the Department's Web site for more information at www.dhs.gov.

DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY FUNDING SEMINAR

The U.S. Department of Energy Forum on Thursday night featured Robert J. Gottschall, Team Leader for Materials and Engineering Physics, within the Division of Materials Sciences and Engineering. This division is one of three in the Office of Basic Energy Sciences (BES), under the Office of Science. Gottschall emphasized that core grants programs in the Division of Materials Sciences and Engineering are idea driven. They want forefront basic research, and they don’t think they’ll get the best by telling scientists what to do. Although it is not required, they do suggest, however, that proposals be submitted in the window between early April and late September as this gives adequate time for peer review and reaching a decision within their funding cycle. Workshops that are held in certain areas are designed to “stimulate thinking in those areas where we want thinking,” Gottschall said, although, again, proposals are by no means restricted to these areas. Gottschall also introduced the five Nanoscale Science Research Centers (NSRCs) now in various stages of construction. Following the DOE forum was a mini-workshop to help identify and prioritize scanning probe microscopy needs in BES’s NSRCs. More information about the Office of Basic Energy Sciences can be found at http://www.science.doe.gov/bes/.

• Compiled and edited by Gopal Rao, MRS Web Science Editor, with additional contributions by Betsy Fleischer, Judy Meiksin, Sarbajit Banerjee

© Materials Research Society, 2004